Fertility group’s screening plan condemned ‘Selection of the fittest’ row over embryos
FERTILITY watchdogs are considering extending the use of a controversial embryo screening technique, it was revealed yesterday.
It would be used to reject embryos with gene defects that may cause disease but are not certain to do so.
Campaigners condemned the move by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority as ‘not good medicine. but simply a ruthless version of selection of the fittest’.
They also accused the watchdog of making decisions that should be left to Parliament.
The new ‘ designer baby’ controversy was triggered when the HFEA opened a public consultation over the potential uses of Pre- implantation Genetic Diagnosis.
It involves testing embryos for faulty genes during IVF treatment and only implanting those shown to be free of the defects.
So far it has been approved to look for faulty genes that inevitably trigger disease.
Currently, ten clinics are allowed to use PGD to test for serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease and a gene that triggers eye cancer in early childhood.
The technique has also been used to create ‘ saviour siblings’ who are a close genetic match to a sick brother or sister and so provide a potential source of lifesaving bone marrow. An extension of its use would let doctors screen for faulty versions of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which carry an 80 per cent chance of breast cancer and account for one in ten cases of the disease.
In future, doctors may be able to use PGD to help prevent Alzheimer’s and prostate cancer.
But Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive
JADE Elizabeth Fletcher was
Britain’s first ‘ designer’ baby when she was born in July.
She came from an embryo specially selected during IVF treatment to be a genetic match for her twoyearbrother Joshua, who suffers from the rare condition, Diamond Blackfan Anaemia.
Joshua’s body does not make enough red blood cells and he needs painful injections to keep him alive. Without a transfusion of healthy and compatible cells to ‘kick-start’ his system, he would be unlikely to survive beyond 30.
Jade’s parents Julie, 32, and Joe, 37, from Northern Ireland, had to fight a legal battle to overturn a ban on the creation of such ‘saviour siblings’. Other couples had been forced to go abroad for treatment. Ethics, said the process relied on creating more embryos than necessary and subjecting them to biopsy procedures which were ‘neither absolutely foolproof nor absolutely safe’.
She added: ‘The embryos carrying the disease are destroyed and others do not survive the biopsy process.
‘This is not good medicine, but simply a ruthless version of selection of the fittest.’
Campaign group LIFE said the consultation was a last- ditch attempt by the HFEA to retain its power in advance of a Government review of the Act which created it.
Spokesman Matthew O’Gorman said: ‘ The HFEA realises that it must appear to be interested in what the people have to say. In reality, the only opinions it values is its own.
‘ It frequently grants PGD licences without any regard for the will of the public.’ He called for the HFEA’s powers to be curtailed and for the setting up of a separate committee to advise and make decisions on ethical matters.
The HFEA has set out the issues in a discussion paper called Choices and Boundaries. The consultation process will last until mid- January. PGD is currently used to screen for genes classed as ‘ highly penetrant’, which means practically everyone who inherits them will develop a disease.
The public is now being asked whether it should also be allowed for genes with ‘lower penetrance’ where people have between a 30 to 80 per cent higher chance of cancer. HFEA chairman Suzi Leather said: ‘ We would like people to understand the possible uses of embryo-testing techniques both now and in the future and to hear their views.
‘ We may be asked to consider applications for these kinds of diseases in the near future and will therefore need to make choices about the types of conditions PGD can be used for.’
j.wheldon@dailymail.co.uk